EU takes on child prostitution issue
Czechs deny massive problem at border, seek German cooperation
By Mindy Kay Bricker
For The Prague Post
(February 26, 2004)


Discouraged by the steps the Czech Republic has taken to solve the problem of child prostitution along the Czech border, German and Dutch European Parliament (EP) members said that the country needs to do more about this "disturbance."

Saying that the Czech government should take further steps to limit child prostitution, German EP member Elisabeth Schroedter and Dutch member Joost Lagendijk introduced the subject at a meeting of the EP's Foreign Relations Committee in Brussels Feb. 18. Talks will continue in March.

The problem of child prostitution in the Czech Republic was brought to light in November when German social-service agency KARO estimated that at least 500 children solicited sex in the border region from October 1998 to June 2003.

German social scientist Cathrin Schauer researched the region's child prostitutes during that period. Focusing on child and adult prostitutes and German sex tourists, Schauer conducted more than 200 interviews.

The report was released with the support of the German committee of the United Nations Children's Fund. It stated that relatives prostituted their children and that even infants had been offered for money.

At the time of the release, however, the Czech government denied such allegations, saying it needed more proof. The government charged that if the allegations were true, KARO should be punished for not reporting illegal activity.

A month later, the Czech Interior Ministry announced that it was ready to tackle the problem with the German government, adding that even if there is one case of child prostitution, it is abominable.

Though Czech officials maintain that the border is problematic, the finger-pointing in the committee meeting disconcerted them.

"There are two sides of the story," said Petra Masinova, spokesperson for the Czech European Union mission in Brussels.

She said that Czechs offer the prostitutes, but the Germans are the sex tourists.

"Both sides -- the Czech government and the German government -- should do something about it," she said from her office in Brussels. "They need the cooperation of both sides."

Saying that the issue warranted only 20 seconds of talk, she had little to add regarding what she would barely describe as a discussion among the committee members.

Referring to Czech nongovernmental organizations such as La Strada, which tackles the problem of human trafficking, and Dum Sance (Chance House), which works with homeless and male prostitutes, Masinova said, "We have done a lot."

The Supreme State Attorney's Office collected data from 2000 to 2002 in the border regions and found that child prostitution is "absolutely not a mass phenomenon in the Czech Republic, even in the areas of its frequent occurrence," Justice Ministry spokeswoman Iva Chaloupkova told the Czech News Agency.

According to state attorneys, the legislation that safeguards against child prostitution is adequate, and a new or improved law is unnecessary.

Committee members could not be reached by telephone.

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A sad situation to be sure. It is unfortunate one cannot find accurate statistics on this problem. It seems that so many parties have a vested interest in obscuring the facts.

DS